Western Digital buys NVMe-oF startup Kazan Networks

Western Digital has bought a small startup called Kazan Networks and its NVMe over Fabrics Ethernet connectivity products. Financial terms are undisclosed and the Kazan people are joining WD.

Kazan makes Onyx NVMe target bridge adaptors that enable NVMe JBOFs (Just a Bunch of Flash drives) to connect directly to NVMe-oF networks. The company claims Onyx has the world’s lowest-power, lowest-latency and highest performance for such a bridge.

Kazan’s Onyx bridge adapter

The company also produces a Fuji ASIC which can do the same job at system board level for smaller NVMe target systems.

WD can use Kazan technology in its IntelliFlash JBOF and OpenFlex composable disaggregated infrastructure (CDI) systems.